


Equilibrium

by CaelumLapis



Series: Gotham [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaelumLapis/pseuds/CaelumLapis
Summary: Tim wonders how much soup he has left, and how much he’ll have after Kon finds it.
Series: Gotham [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785148
Kudos: 4





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer is, I don’t own them, not even a little. Chronologically, this takes place before Create/Recreate.

Big, wet flakes of snow coat the dark and gritty surfaces of this city, _his_ city, in deceptively calm shades of white and gray. It’s more difficult to achieve the element of surprise, but that’s not precisely the intent in Tim’s nightly patrols. 

Gotham sleeps as Tim does, fitfully and only when absolutely necessary for continued function. There’s a steady hum of noise, sirens and music, footfalls and laughter, broken by fleeting moments when Gotham is truly silent. 

Fifteen clashes and nine of them were troublesome. The last was some time ago, zip-stripped and filed away in his head now. An uncomfortable stretch lingers in his shoulder, side effect of testing the flexibility in that arm by seeing exactly how far behind him it could go. 

It’s manageable. Checking in is not. There is a very deliberate _lack_ of sound over the comm, and he’s not going to change that. Not tonight. 

He perches on the ledge of a rooftop, face into the wind as he catches his breath. Silence around him, briefly punctuated by a distant siren. He shifts his weight as he pulls the thermos free of his belt and pops it open, enough to register steam right before the heat of what is behind it. It takes a second to get to the taste and what this is, beyond warm and fuel. 

He’s scanning the city between pulls from the thermos, ropy strands of hair blowing across his lenses. His mouth is raw, not precisely red where it reflects on the surface of the thermos, but close. He wonders for a second how the soup stayed hot, and then decides it doesn’t actually matter. He breathes in the steam, but it never touches his restless need to move. 

A few more swallows and he’s done. Stiffness is settling into his shoulder, and he has plans to work that out. Up and moving, over across the rooftops and down the side, gauntlet swinging up to pin a line across the alley and he’s following it through snowflakes, over and across, down to the ground

He lands in a crush of boots and snow, steps over the debris in the alley and past it, out to the edge of the building. Nothing moves in his line of sight. He doesn’t trust Gotham when she’s asleep. He knows better. 

He swings up into a fire escape, climbs a few levels and launches back up to the roof. The quiet makes him uneasy. He can hear every movement he’s making; squeak of steel, scrape of the rope through his gauntlet, crunch of his boots on the snow cover. Hiss of his breath where it hits his esophagus and his tissue recoils from the cold, the quieter huff when it slips back out. A louder one when he lands on the roof, pausing in its structural shadows. 

It’s too quiet. 

He’s as prepared for this as he is for anything _else._ It’s become a game and Kon is, when motivated, impressively good at it. Tim jumps when Kon finds his line of sight, bulky color against the grays. He’s been around B–

Gotham, enough to know how to hide certain things. The slide of Kon’s eyebrows says that he knows this.

It’s quiet enough that he should have heard Kon breathing, but he can hear it now. He wonders how he missed it, possibly because it is in sync with his own. That has to be intentional. Kon hovers in midair for a second because he can, and then he’s down, same grind of boot against snow and the same huff of breath on impact. Tim wonders how much soup he has left, and how much he’ll have after Kon finds it. 

The wind dies down for a moment, and Kon’s scenting the air, whiff-huff sounds through his nose, and Tim’s not _exactly_ protecting the thermos. Much. Alfred makes good soup; Kon knows this.

Kon steps closer in what could be an offering of a sort, but Tim’s not buying it. He has a batarang ready under his cape, slides it slowly into his gauntlet, slick-hiss-whip sound of it in flight is already in his ears.

It’s _damned_ good soup. 

The air around them gets warmer by virtue of proximity as Kon moves closer. Too close for the batarang now. Damnit. Tim returns it to his belt and runs through his plans of defense, finding them problematic. Not enough room, too much room, the moratorium on death, the invulnerability angle, the–fuck. Tactile… arg. 

Kon’s staring down off the roof, looking slowly from left to right. Tim can’t _move_. Not his gauntlet, not the batarang, not the _thermos_.

“You have soup.” Kon eyes him for a second, and then does that same slow sweep from Tim’s scalp to his boots, lingering longer than exactly necessary on places in between.

That’s not a question. Tim’s going to pretend it was, by not answering it. Kon glances back over the ledge around the rooftop, deceptively casual. Tim knows this. Kon is not patient, and he’s going to want to know where the–oh. 

Slow, steady, impossibly tight squeeze, starting at his ankles and sliding up, each individual muscle getting a very thorough search…and he could not possibly hide a thermos…Tim hisses in a breath. There. Not there. Yes there. _Fuck_.

Kon’s got his arms folded across his chest now, eyes closed and snowflakes drifting to rest on his lashes before they vanish a split second later. He’s not looking in any way that Tim can see, but he can feel it. The thermos slides slowly from the holder, up along his ribs, over his stomach. He shouldn’t feel that through the Kevlar, but he does. He’s not even sure it’s the thermos, exactly–just warm. Very, very warm.

“Kon.” Tim hisses, and Kon flexes an eyebrow, sending a snowflake skittering across his cheekbone. 

“Ngh. Concentrating,” he grunts out, helpfully. 

A hiss of breath, and that is _not_ the thermos. “ _Kon_.”

“Heh,” Kon answers, and Tim can’t speak. His jaw is not cooperating at all. 

That is not the thermos because the thermos is–whatever this is, is suddenly very, very warmly resting against his jock. Kon’s eyebrows move closer together, bending furrows into the skin between them.

Tim bites back a frustrated noise, promising several hours of very painful retribution for whatever the– _fuck_. Solid, steady warm feeling now, pushing up against and sliding into his jock, and he is _not_ –he’s so hard he feels it in his _teeth_.

Kon’s eyes are closed, and Tim can just barely make out the line of skin-meets-shirt at the base of Kon’s throat at this angle, but Kon’s breathing low and deep, steady and slowly faster, and that’s… just like seeing.

The warmth is inside his jock now, pulsing in tandem with Kon’s breathing, slow slide of almost-skin but there’s not enough _room_. He can’t keep staring at Kon, and he can’t _stop_ staring at him, watching the beads of sweat rising at his hairline, and the muscles flexing at the sides of his jaw, and the– _fuck_ –the same flex in his jock. 

He’s breathing faster than Kon now, sucking in air like he can’t get enough of it, layers of sound mingled with the pressure and the slow, steady motion and there shouldn’t be room for this and there somehow is, it’s–he can’t _think_ , confusing signals of _god_ and _yes_ and _move_ and _can’t_ , all fighting with the visuals of Kon’s face and the sound of his breath. 

Panting, growling sounds between his teeth and Tim’s letting them ride out when he breathes, closing his eyes because the fight’s too much right now. He’s too close for this and not close enough, strangled noises and Kon lets go, enough that he’s pumping into this now, showing Kon how and where and how fast and _oh fuck_.

Tim would ask how Kon _knows_ , but that doesn’t precisely matter. 

When he comes down from the overload, the warmth is everywhere, and Kon’s watching him with an expression somewhere between smug and appreciative. Tim’s breathing, slower and steadier the more he tries it. Kon slowly lets go. Enough that Tim won’t have to abruptly regain balance, and he’s not explaining his jock to Alfred, unless he can get away with, “I really enjoy patrol.” 

When he remembers, he reaches down, closing his gauntlet over the familiar shape of the thermos at his belt, yanking it free and tossing it to Kon.

Kon catches it easily, pops it open and takes a deep, blissful breath of the steam. He gives Tim a questioning look, something along the lines of asking permission, because that’s…that’s how this works. 

Tim grunts an answer, watching the city. Gotham’s still quiet, but his restless edge is fading. Kon takes a long slurping drink from the thermos, following it up with a contented sigh.

He would, if he were reasonable, decide that this is a fair trade for the heist in Metropolis three weeks ago, and the altogether creative way he’d kept Kon occupied. Tim glances over his shoulder, watching Kon’s throat flex. He’s not inclined to be reasonable. Kon’s distracted, and Tim slides a little plastic tab in his fist. He presses his thumb into the soft plastic, feeling resistance as it gives way and slicks the palm of his gauntlet.

Kon lowers the thermos, his eye catching Tim’s. When the thermos hits the snow, Tim’s on him against the wall, talking without words into a tangle of teeth, and tongues. He’d take the gauntlet off, but he knows better. Tim pushes into Kon’s jeans with it, cups his jaw with the other one and just– 

Watches. 

Kon sucks in a breath, eyes closed and he’s fucking Tim’s gauntlet, drumming the back of his head into the bricks. Tim doesn’t need to feel Kon’s dick in his fist, he can see it play out over his face, tense and hard until he’s opening wide and slack, panting between the fingers of Tim’s gauntlet. 

Tim bites the side of Kon’s jaw, enough that he can watch the red fade back to skin. Kon’s throat rumbles something between protest and acceptance. He hmms quietly into Kon’s skin and pushes away from the wall, looking down over the ledge. There’s a slight twinge in Tim’s shoulder, but it’s manageable. 

Gotham is waking up to sirens and the steady hum of noise, footfalls and motion. Kon’s hand is warm when it touches his back, and this time, Tim’s going to let it stay there.


End file.
